Californian logistics technology start-up Baton has raised $10.5m in its series A funding round.

Baton paves the way for the adoption of autonomous vehicles in trucking and says it solves the largest and most well-known problem in the industry: the over two billion hours lost annually due to dwell and detention.

The technology enables long-haul truckers to drop off and pick up loads at Baton drop zones in major metro areas, and then a network of local fleets does the first and final kilometre of delivery to warehouses. This eliminates the wasted hours associated with detention, in-transit dwell and inter-appointment dwell for long-haul lorries.

Additionally, it increases wages for drivers, reduces carbon emissions and enables highway-only autonomous lorries to hand off loads to human drivers for the first and final kilometre.

Baton sub-leases these round-the-clock drop zones and provides the software to coordinate seamlessly vehicles, drop-zones, warehouses and local drivers through a single API.

“We’re excited to bring cutting-edge technology to one of the biggest problems in transportation,” said Baton co-founder Nate Robert. “We have the opportunity to fundamentally change how long-haul trucking works by bifurcating routes into a highway-only segment and a local segment, enabling trucking companies to increase efficiency, improve profit margins and increase driver miles and wages.”

Baton currently operates in Los Angeles and plans to use this series A funding to hire more engineers and service additional major cities across the country, including Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas in the next 12 to 18 months.

“In the future, Baton’s platform will make it possible for highway-only autonomous trucks to hand off their loads to human-driven electric trucks in the city, who can then drive at off-peak hours for the greatest efficiency,” said Baton co-founder Andrew Berberick. “None of this would be possible at scale without the world class optimisation engine that underlies Baton’s core operation, monitoring and coordinating a host of loads and appointment windows concurrently.”

The logistics technology platform was developed out of 8VC’s Build programme.

“I am excited to see the growth of their engineering team and expansion into new cities across the country,” said 8VC partner Jake Medwell. “The adoption of autonomy will also drive home the long-term value proposition. As we see automated and eventually electric trucks become standard for certain routes, the network of Baton hubs and the coordination provided by its software will become seen as core infrastructure. Baton makes the transformation to automated trucking possible.”

The funding round was co-led by 8VC and Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of the AP Moller-Maersk transportation and logistics firm.

“We are proud about investing in the Baton team,” said Maersk Growth partner Jeppe Hoier. “Baton is a great addition to our Maersk Growth portfolio supporting our mission to democratise the supply chain. Baton addresses major inefficiencies in haulage dwell and detention to the benefit of all players in the ecosystem. We look forward to partnering with them on their exciting drop-and-hook technology and facilitating more sustainable last mile services.”

Maersk Growth and 8VC were joined in this round by an add on from real estate company Prologis; Ryder, a logistics and transportation company in North America; Lineage Logistics; Jett McCandless, CEO of Project 44; Shoaib Makani, CEO of KeepTruckin; John Larkin, operating partner at Clarendon Capital; Trace Haggard, founder of ISG; and Cooley.

Baton is headquartered in San Francisco with its operations office in Chicago. It was founded in October 2019 by Nate Robert and Andrew Berberick out of 8VC’s Build programme.